TY - JOUR
T1 - More persistent bacterial than fungal associations in the microbiota of a pest insect
AU - Gurung, Kiran
AU - Vink, Stefanie Nicoline
AU - Salles, Joana Falcão
AU - Wertheim, Bregje
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Herman Helsen who provided the details of infestation and the growers. We are grateful to Tom Groot (Dirksland), Maria Buitenkamp and Edo Biewinga (Hoogeveen—Tiendeveen); Gijs Gerritse (Randwijk); Jeroen Spitzen (Winssen) who provided access to their garden and orchards. KG was supported by the Adaptive Life scholarship program (2017), University of Groningen. We thank the Center for Information Technology of the University of Groningen for their support and for providing access to the Peregrine high performance computing cluster. This research has been carried out in the groups of Evolutionary Genetics and Microbial Ecology at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES) according to the requirements of the Graduate School of Science and Engineering (Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen; Groningen, the Netherlands).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/6/24
Y1 - 2022/6/24
N2 - The invasive fly Drosophila suzukii is a pest that can infest a diverse range of intact, ripening fruits, using its serrated ovipositor. This constitutes a different niche compared to the rotting fruits its ancestors use, especially because these intact fruits have limited quantities of microbes and soluble nutrients for the developing larvae. To investigate the potential role of microbial associations in the niche expansion of this invasive fly, we characterized the bacterial and fungal communities of D. suzukii and various wild fruits from which they developed. To assess cross-generational microbial associations, we also lab-reared fly populations and characterized their microbial communities. Diversity metrics of microbial communities differed significantly between flies and fruits. Different fruit types varied substantially in microbial composition, while flies showed relatively uniform bacterial communities, irrespective of the fruit source they developed on. After approximately ten generations of lab-rearing, bacterial communities still showed considerable overlap with those of wild flies. Fungal communities of flies and fruits showed larger resemblance, with a substantial overlap between wild flies and the fruits on which they had developed. Our study thus reports that the fungal community structure in these pests largely reflects those on the breeding substrates, while these flies might have formed more persistent associations with some bacteria and transmit these across generations.
AB - The invasive fly Drosophila suzukii is a pest that can infest a diverse range of intact, ripening fruits, using its serrated ovipositor. This constitutes a different niche compared to the rotting fruits its ancestors use, especially because these intact fruits have limited quantities of microbes and soluble nutrients for the developing larvae. To investigate the potential role of microbial associations in the niche expansion of this invasive fly, we characterized the bacterial and fungal communities of D. suzukii and various wild fruits from which they developed. To assess cross-generational microbial associations, we also lab-reared fly populations and characterized their microbial communities. Diversity metrics of microbial communities differed significantly between flies and fruits. Different fruit types varied substantially in microbial composition, while flies showed relatively uniform bacterial communities, irrespective of the fruit source they developed on. After approximately ten generations of lab-rearing, bacterial communities still showed considerable overlap with those of wild flies. Fungal communities of flies and fruits showed larger resemblance, with a substantial overlap between wild flies and the fruits on which they had developed. Our study thus reports that the fungal community structure in these pests largely reflects those on the breeding substrates, while these flies might have formed more persistent associations with some bacteria and transmit these across generations.
KW - Bacterial community
KW - Core microbes
KW - Fungal community
KW - Insect microbiota
KW - Invasive insect
KW - Microbiota
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132762996&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10340-022-01524-1
DO - 10.1007/s10340-022-01524-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85132762996
SN - 1612-4758
JO - Journal of Pest Science
JF - Journal of Pest Science
ER -